Referendum: The 2006 Midterm Congressional Elections
Gary C. Jacobson analyzes the 2006 midterm election as a referendum on the performance of President Bush, the war in Iraq, and the Republican Congress. He argues that the Democrats won control of Congress by nationalizing the election and exploiting widespread public discontent with the Republican regime to overcome the Republicans’ formidable structural advantage in present-day electoral politics.

Do Counterproliferation and Counterterrorism Go Together?
Daniel Byman challenges the view that proliferation and terrorism are similar problems and that the policies to combat them necessarily operate in harmony. Policymakers concerned about nuclear terrorism should focus on helping potential leakers improve security and on guarding against the rise of hostile ideological states.

The Detention and Trial of Enemy Combatants: A Drama in Three Branches
Michael C. Dorf describes the interactions among the three branches of the federal government in addressing the detention and trial of captives in the war in Afghanistan and the broader ‘‘war on terror.’’ He explains that the Supreme Court’s repeated rejections of the Bush administration’s sweeping assertions of wartime authority have erected few insurmountable obstacles to administration policy. Instead, the Court has required the administration to seek authority from Congress, which in turn has shown little appetite for reining in the President.

Is America a Christian Nation?
Hugh Heclo argues that both secular and religious political activists have found it advantageous to demonize each other by using the idea of America as a Christian nation. Citizens can gain a more mature understanding of the relationship between Christianity and American nationhood by considering different domains of variation in America’s alleged Christian-ness.

Between Passion and Deliberation: The Christian Right and Democratic Ideals
JON A. SHIELDS unearths a surprising relationship between the Christian right and democratic ideals. Although Christian right leaders are strident in the context of mobilization, they also encourage their activists to embrace civility and public reason in the public square. This fact highlights a deeper tension between the democratic ideals of participation and deliberation.

The Basis of Puerto Rico’s Constitutional Status: Colony, Compact, or ‘‘Federacy’’?
DAVID A. REZVANI examines the controversy surrounding Puerto Rico’s constitutional status and rejects both of the traditional views on this issue. Puerto Rico is neither an American colony nor are its powers legally safeguarded by its 1952 ‘‘compact’’ with the United States. Instead, mirroring the historic British dominions, unwritten constitutional rules defend Puerto Rico’s constitutional status, making it into a partially sovereign polity known as a ‘‘federacy.’’

Constructing the U.S. Rapprochement with China, 1961-1974: From "Red Menace" to "Tacit Ally", Evelyn Goh ; Sino-Japanese Relations: Interaction, Logic, and Transformation, Ming Wan ; China and Vietnam: The Politics of Asymmetry, Brantly Womack
Reviewed by ANDREW J. NATHAN

Money, Power, & Elections: How Campaign Finance Reform Subverts American Democracy, Rodney A. Smith ; Money and Free Speech: Campaign Finance Reform and the Courts, Melvin I. Urofsky
Reviewed by J. Mark Wrighton

Spying on the Bomb: American Nuclear Intelligence from Nazi Germany to Iran and North Korea, Jeffrey T. Richelson
Reviewed by Robert Jervis

The Silent Majority: Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South, Matthew D. Lassiter
Reviewed by Charles W. Eagles

Party Wars: Polarization and the Politics of National Policy Making, Barbara Sinclair
Reviewed by Nolan McCarty

The Election After Reform: Money, Politics, and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, Michael Malbin
Reviewed by Costas Panagopoulos

Deliberative Choices: Debating Public Policy in Congress, Paul J. Quirk and Gary Mucciaroni
Reviewed by Katrina L. Gamble

Ten Thousand Democracies: Politics and Public Opinion in America’s School Districts, Michael B. Berkman and Eric Plutzer
Reviewed by Kenneth K. Wong

The Reagan Imprint: Ideas in American Foreign Policy from the Collapse of Communism to the War on Terror, John Arquilla
Reviewed by Stuart Gottlieb

The Shield and the Cloak: The Security of the Commons, Gary Hart
Reviewed by Jakub Grygiel

The Enemy of My Enemy: The Alarming Convergence of Militant Islam and the Extreme Right, George Michael
Reviewed by Eric Larson

Why War? The Cultural Logic of Iraq, the Gulf War, and Suez, Philip Smith
Reviewed by Marc Lynch

Strategies of Dominance: The Misdirection of U.S. Foreign Policy, P. Edward Haley
Reviewed by David V. Edwards

Counterinsurgency and the Global War on Terror: Military Culture and Irregular War, Robert M. Cassidy
Reviewed by Dessie P. Zagorcheva

Terror on the Internet: The New Arena, the New Challenges, Gabriel Weimann
Reviewed by Benjamin H. Friedman

Blind Oracles: Intellectuals and War from Kennan to Kissinger, Bruce Kuklick
Reviewed by David Greenberg

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty: An Insider’s Perspective, Keith A. Hansen
Reviewed by George H. Quester

The New Lion of Damascus: Bashar al-Asad and Modern Syria, David W. Lesch
Reviewed by Steven Heydemann

Reaching for Power: The Shi’a in the Modern Arab World, Yitzhak Nakash
Reviewed by Magnus T. Bernhardsson

Uniting Africa: Building Regional Peace and Security Systems, David J. Francis
Reviewed by Kevin C. Dunn

Building New Deal Liberalism: The Political Economy of Public Works, 1933-1956, Jason Scott Smith
Reviewed by Gary Mucciaroni

Five Days in Philadelphia: 1940, Wendell Willkie, and the Political Convention that Freed FDR to Win World War II, Charles Peters
Reviewed by Edwin Amenta

No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965-2005, Patrick J. McGuinn
Reviewed by Paul Manna

School’s In: Federalism and the National Education Agenda, Paul Manna
Reviewed by Christopher A. Simon

Common Ground: Committee Politics in the U.S. House of Representatives, John Baughman
Reviewed by C. Lawrence Evans

Democracy, Inc.: The Press and Law in the Corporate Rationalization of the Public Sphere, David S. Allen
Reviewed by Roger L. Sadler

The Hard Count: The Political and Social Challenges of Census Mobilization, Norman H. Nie, Kenneth Prewitt, D. Sunshine Hillygus and Heili Pals
Reviewed by John Mark Hansen

Reconstructing the Commercial Republic: Constitutional Design after Madison, Stephen L. Elkin
Reviewed by Keith E. Whittington

Age in the Welfare State, Julia Lynch
Reviewed by Greg M. Shaw

Design for a New Europe, John Gillingham
Reviewed by George Ross

Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages, Saskia Sassen
Reviewed by Paul Kantor